My Guardian Angel(s)

From a very young age, when my mother sat with me and made me repeat dainty lil kiddie prayers after her, she used to make me pray to my guardian angel to be with me always and to keep me safe. As I grew older and started saying my own litany of prayers I began to forget my poor little guardian angel. Not that I stopped believing, oh no… I still ardently believe in that angel who grew up with me, constantly at my right side, urging me to always do good and crying softly when I wouldn’t heed.
But now, as I sit at home expecting my own child to come into the world any day and spending hours reading or embroidering or sleeping while waiting for the D-Day, my parents attend to my every iota of need.
My mother: Ghee in the morning (“it’ll help during labour”), kurunthotti kashayam at night (“it strengthens mother and child”), carrots to munch on (“cos it’s good for the baby”) and chocolate cake (“to keep hunger pangs at bay”), and all this without a single hitch to her daily routine of preparing breakfast, lunch, dinner and what not.
My father: Ensures there are fruits in the house at any given time of the day or night, battles traffic and rain to go all the way to the madding city and buy health drinks for me, minute by minute enquiries as to whether the baby is moving and how I’m feeling…
It’s been more than a month now since I’ve come back home… And every night I thank the Lord for giving me my dear guardian angels—my father and my mother.

PS. But brothers are of a different league… If it’s not to call up and enquire whether I feel like eating anything special, it is to bug my head off about resting my hand on my bulging tummy—“It’s harmful for the baby,” insists my ‘kid’ brother!! Brothers will remain brothers, I guess.

The genuineness of it

Most people who are lauded as saviours of the world; people who apparently go about doing good for others; who selflessly work their butts off making others happy, do it because they like the praise and the gratitude that invariably follow such actions. Take away the glory and the admiration and they start grumbling. Peep into their houses and the very act that they claim to do selflessly is preceded by a long list of complaints, grumbles and curses. Behind the beatific smiles that adorn the lips of these selfless personas lie a household submitted unwittingly to a heap of verbal and non verbal show of irritation. The servants get a brunt of it, the children get it, the spouse gets it, even the curious fly that buzzed in to see what’s going on gets hit with it.
But the beaming smile that shines at the praise and adulation that invariably follow acts of good deed—now that’s genuine.
Disclaimer: This view is totally and entirely intolerant and prejudiced and that’s how it’s gonna stay for some time.

Sell your ideas—they’re totally acceptable

That’s what the fortune in my Orkut home page said today. Now that’s a brilliant idea for sure. Cos who would not want their ideas and opinions to be heard or read or seen at least… Sell my ideas—brilliant. But how in the world do I let them or the world know that I’m more than willing to sell my ideas? World, I hope you get in touch with me regarding this. Soon…
:+

Five minutes of non-stop rain

Everybody’s writing about the rains these days—the romance, the nostalgia, the slush, the slime and the devastation. When it started raining, at around 11 this morning, I rushed to the door—more for the chance to get wet in the shower than to salvage the laundry—only to be shooed back inside just as quickly. (Being seven months pregnant also means getting used to being denied quite a few of the good stuff in life.)

So my mother ran like mad, plucking near-dry clothes off the clothesline and rushed back into the house. She paused long enough to catch her breath, then turned and bolted the door only to realize that the rain had come down to a trickle and in another couple of minutes it stopped.

Bursting into a laugh Amma exclaimed: “Chey… ithenthoru mazhaya. Manushyane kaliyaakkunno?” (What a rain!!! It’s making a fool of us.)

Flit, flutter, fly, butterfly

It was true what my brother said. It had been ages since we saw a butterfly. This one was of the typical kind of the species—fairly big, with blue designs adorning its dainty black wings. It was a pleasure to watch its fairy-like movements as it flitted from flower to flower savoring the different kinds of nectar at hand. Then the rain played spoilsport, shooing us all away—us inside the house and to the wafting smell of hot coffee and the butterfly, hopefully, to a safe spot.

Then today, as I sat on the veranda enjoying the cold moist early morning breeze, there came another of those fairy creatures. Flitting in and out of flowers and leaves it finally settled down to suckle contentedly from a big yellow flower that showed all the promise of gently rocking the butterfly to sleep as it nestled within its satiny petals.

Words

All this while, I was yearning to write. Thoughts and ideas—some definitely profound, some frivolous—were flooding my mind, urging to be let loose. But now, just as suddenly as this blog was created, I have nothing to write about. I am drained. In a sense, words fail me… And that too is life.